A Crisis of Confidence

The credit market is suffering from, amongst other things, a lack of liquidity due to an increase in uncertainty. However the crisis in the global market provides an opportunity for investors/lenders with cash, to purchase assets cheaply and hopefully reap rewards from a resumption or increase levels in business activity. Persons with the ability to scrutinize good investment ideas and provide funding are now able to select from numerous investment opportunities at much more attractive prices, providing they are able to analyze the investment sufficiently to compensate for inherent risks.

Government Waste

The ideal function of democratically elected Governments and its quasi-government agencies is to set policies, approve development plans and facilitate implementation. While it should be the responsibility of an extremely motivated profit making private sector to bring a high level of efficiency and urgency to any task. The private sector must be encouraged to compete for research contracts to guide Governments’ policies, to submit development plans for Governments’ approvals or to perform tasks that add value to Governments’ facilitation activities.

Retired but Productive

Professionals, having invested years of service under an employer, are retiring and offering their services on contract. Such individuals are strongly advised to register a limited liability company mainly to protect their personal, existing, hard earned (house, pension and other investments) assets from lawsuits and subsequently, to present a professional image to potential clients and other service providers.

Non-Financial Professionals

How can Engineers, Lawyers and Medical Doctors graduate and gain employment without being financially literate? Graduating with a degree from a reputable teaching institution is not a ticket to success, as many without degrees would have you think, it says you can learn, think and resolve problems, use initiative and in some cases, you can lead. Yet, these young professionals expect to enter an organization at management levels and receive management remuneration. While the reality is even after orientation programs, periods of internship and other in-house training courses, some of these professionals cannot reconcile or balance they personal debit or credit card statement, far more to appreciate their employer’s budgeted or financial statements.

Executive Post and Pay

Management can be defined as the art of analyzing, setting and meeting predetermined goals utilizing others’ skills and abilities. These goals can include; returns on investment of twenty (20%) percent per annum, increases in production efficiency of over three (3%) percent this year, a five 5% percent increases in market share within the next year, and once judged to be attainable becomes the driving focus of the organization. It is goals like these that the selected (President, Chief Executive Officer, General Manager, Managing Director, etc.) top leader is contracted to achieve and is the basis for remuneration.

Money (The Happiness Index)

Many in society see money as the solution to most if not all of its problems. This is quite understandable when we look at the levels of unemployed or unemployable in the society. It is still reasonable when we examine the amount of “working poor” (people who work but do not earn enough to meet their basic needs) in society. It becomes more difficult to accept when employed people with high salaries (twice or three time their basic needs) have low or no savings or net worth. It is impossible, to comprehend when there are people with high net worth who are simply not happy.

Information-based Planning

Planning, by countries or by sectors or by groups or by individuals, is the most essential activity that affects all aspects of life and has always been so. Countries must plan to improve the standard of living it offers its citizens. Sector planning delivers economic efficiency on goods and services internationally. Goal oriented Groups must constantly re-examine activities to produce the desired results. Individual planning is and always has been driven by decisions and actions taken by groups, by sectors, by countries. An independent statutory (established under law) well-funded well-staffed statistical organization, that compiles using tested methodologies and issues reports on a regular timely basis, is needed to drive strategic planning and decision-making.

Parenting your Business

Much in the same way parents would think about their child, entrepreneurs must be concerned about business. The love, the health, the development must all be considered in the context of external factors.

From birth your project needs you to provide its nutrients, shelter or location, security and attention. A gestation period is important for you to prepare or plan for every foreseeable and unforeseeable event. A good plan must include how to deal with intangibles when difficult situations arise, if for one reason or another you are unable to provide inputs on time or some tragedy affects your ability to function, the plan must address and point to solutions to give you the strength to carry on.

Guiding a Nations Youth

Many among us wonder why crime has become so wide spread and brutal. Some say that it was always so, it is just being more widely reported due to the technology now available to journalists. Others say that the education system lacks discipline and has excluded and failed many. Yet others say that the police are not doing their work. The most widely accepted explanation is based on the financial rewards of illegal drugs and the trafficking of said drugs leading to turf wars and the need for guns to protect such turfs. Whatever the reasons, the solution is to build a strong morally based, highly educated and tolerant society.

Teaching the Parents

Education is a corner stone of a great society and as such, must be adequately funded and accessible and available to the entire population. Failure to do so will lead to more money being spent on national security. Learning is a constant that happens in any circumstance, from birth to death and at any location, but teaching needs a formal setting and an equipped (classroom, laboratory, grounds, etc.) site to be effective. Curriculum or course design requires research and development and must be constantly updated and understood by the teachers who are to deliver it. A safe living (home and neighborhood) environment is essential to learning.

Efficiency drives Business

Along with Religious morals and Government regulations, Business activity is one of the corner stones of a great society, delivering essential goods and services directly or indirectly to consumers, creating and sustaining the desired economic activities that fuels growth and improving upon the existing standard of life. Business cannot achieve its core objective, provide jobs or offer a reasonable return on investment without being mindful of the actual and attainable levels of efficiency.

Efficiency; the ability to get things done without waste of energy or time, using processes to generate solutions, paying fairly for and encouraging productivity and innovation, making the best out of the least, none of which can be measured using a balance sheet or budget.

Agriculture Issues

Any plan to deal with Agriculture and Food Production has to be discussed in terms of financial feasibility and social responsibility. Agriculture must be seen as both a money making venture and as a health security issue. It is the profit-making aspect of the sector that encourages the risk-takers to invest; the capital component, the skilled personnel, the time and effort. The haunting reality that the human body must have proper forms of nutrients to be healthy and productive must drive Governments’ actions.

Buyer Beware, Seller Be Careful

People have always expected more from their leaders, even when they understand that expectations are similar to a quenchless thirst, the more you get the more you want. Today’s leaders fully recognize that an educated population is essential to improving lifestyles and will question each and every decision along the way, thus challenging the leadership. Many wanting to go slower, study and analyze the direction plotted and take stock of progress. Others want to go faster, build and expand upon the existing facilities and provide for the future now. This division is political and if the “many” outnumber the “others”, the election winners set the agenda, the pace and are responsible for the state of the economy. Hence, all public financial projections or budget statements are political in nature.

Information Power

The key to success in every aspect of life comes from setting measurable and attainable goals. Dreams may guide an objective but until practical plans are formulated all you have is the dream. Thoughts of winning a lot of money (lottery), inheriting a fortune or even just working hard are all just dreams that need to be transformed into more sensible statements. “I will work for a salary that allows me to invest ten percent of my disposable income in a lottery.”, “Because my family operates business I will work and educate myself to one day in the future lead that business.” or “I will work, continue to educate myself and invest fifty percent of disposable income in marketable securities (stocks, bonds and real estate).” These statements must be further expanded into detailed plans and strategies that define, firstly, what is meant by work, educate and invest, secondly, the time frame associated with particular tasks and most importantly, who will help or hinder specific actions.

Restaurant Business

The Restaurant business is a complex one comprising three different sectors; the Service Sector, the Trade Sector and the Manufacturing Sector, each with its own challenges. To succeed management must master costing and pricing issues in each of the three sectors and define the type and scale of the operation.


Service Sector, Entertainment Industry with a simple costing formula management can target the demographic (age group and disposable income) it wants to invite by creating the necessary ambiance, in which location is the key. This can range from a clean watch-the-cook, side walk café, food bar with specialty service staff and quick check-out to a full service, five star layout with in-house live-entertainment with special theme nights. The more combination of settings used the more difficult the costing formula and the pricing strategies; whether to charge an entrance fee, add a service charge on to the bill or absorb the cost into the bill.

Energy Issues

With the invention and wide usage of the circuit board in many personal devices and electric motors driving production, human beings have become as dependent on electricity as they are on water. Hence meeting the projected electricity generation needs is today’s biggest priority.

With battery technology becoming more efficient in its storage capacity and its ability to be transported, light weight smaller devices that are highly portable are presently available and transforming the communication industry and all other sectors dependent on communications. Soon with longer times between charges, larger equipment employing electric motors that can perform heavier duties will use electricity stored in moveable batteries, hence modifying both the transportation and manufacturing industries.

Life Intangibles

We all are very busy whether in our Personal, Professional or Business lives, but are we productive and to what end. The reward for productive activities is happiness and the greater level of happiness present is the only defense against life’s inevitable misfortunes. Lives cannot be strictly measured by the assignment of net worth or net asset values. Lives are, much more complicated, filled with more intangible issues.

Business relies heavily on managerial and accounting reports and to a lesser degree on its reputation to define itself and to build equity for future growth. Professionals also rely on financial and accounting reports but more on their reputation, defining themselves by the size of their clientele (people who seek their advice). Persons never use money or accounting methods to value childhood (the starting period of their lives) but rely a great deal on family name and reputation, gifts of birth. Hence, accounting reports should be used to guide monetary decisions towards (life’s top priority) building and maintaining a good name. Money from illegal or unethical activities will destroy the family name.

Friends and Family Business

Getting into business with friends or family maybe unavoidable and even uncomfortable but it will require some serious planning to protect your investment and reputation. Initial capital contributions should be put periodically into an investment account (a statement generating saving account in any convenient bank branch) for recording purposes, out of which comes amounts invested in public and private debt instruments (bonds, notes, bills and loans), public and private equities (shares in business) and remaining with an amount representing cash 10-20% of the total portfolio (amount contributed).

A Living Constitution

Any constitution must reflex the will of the people it is meant to govern. Hence, the crucial issue becomes the election and selection of both law-makers and policy makers. Simply put, a constitution is a set of rules and procedures that instruct actions on behalf of the majority while giving voice to the minority. The Judiciary is charged, under the said constitution, with the responsibility of interpreting and protecting the constitution and its current amendments under the shroud of natural justice.

Small Business Issues

Not every small and medium enterprise (SME) is led by an entrepreneur (a risk taker). Many SMEs are born out of necessity, more so under recessionary conditions, high job losses or wage cuts force many into their own business. Using their own savings or that of family and friends as the initial investment and borrowing base on an unproven business plan and a credit rating earned as an employee, many being ill-prepared for either failure or success.

The retrenched employee, forced into business, is generally drawn to either the trade or service sectors. The trade sector (grocery, dry-goods store) for it apparent quick cash flow and ease of understanding the process and the service sector (auto repairs, beauty salon) for the specialized skills their individually possess. These ex-employees and new business people never respect the administrative or support rolls that their previous employers provided and may be helped by simply asking why or what were the circumstances which led to their retrenchment.

UN Poverty Annihilation

Strengthening the United Nations can prevent poverty if not annihilate it. Governments and Non-Governmental Organizations, who are actively involved in poverty annihilation, must define the type of poverty on a case by case basis, design and employ strategies to have the desired effect and measure the effectiveness of those strategies to reach the people in need.

Poverty, in different parts of the world, can range for abject to sanction. Abject poverty caused by climate conditions requires foresight, planning and quick action on relocation when necessary. Sanction poverty caused by (wars, discrimination or politics) human beings requires a multifaceted approach to achieving any solution.

Health verse Wellness cost

Many of us are virtually working for our lives, with the rising cost of health care, savings, investment portfolio and pensions, which took the majority of our lives to build, can vanish quickly. Retirement plans must now factor in more for healthcare concerns: Can taxes controlled by Governments or premiums managed by private sector insurance companies provide for an appropriate or the necessary level of long-term diagnosis, treatment and medication expense.

The majority of us will age without suffering any serious medical conditions until we can least afford it. So contributing financially, directly or indirectly, to health insurance plans during your productive years should yield benefits later on. But the reality is we cannot depend on public or private sector insurance only, due to inflation and other unknowns, we will have to use other financial resources. Interest and dividend income, as a result of your investment portfolio and pension plans, is to replace the take home salary or income you previously brought in during your working life and hence, this is to pay for living expenses.

Competitive Trade

One sided trade agreements by any name are designed to help developing nations develop by encouraging business to make difficult decisions and become more efficient. Decisions on supply of raw materials, effectiveness of plant and machinery, availability of skills and technical procedures and the type of marketing needed. The only solution is to employ efficient strategies that make the business model competitive in targeted markets, noting that even long-term free trade agreements will not support inefficiencies.


Business associations should be totally honest with their members, even to the point of losing them. Many developing nations have traditionally supported an inefficient “so called” manufacturing sector which could not be sustained while getting full access to foreign markets as this would retard that foreign market’s manufacturing sector. So called because a true manufacturer does not have to import more than 50% of its raw (naturally occurring) materials - manufacturing is the process of combining raw materials (farmed or mined locally) into finished usable products.

More Financial job cuts

The financial sector worldwide is taking the sub-prime crisis as an opportunity to become more efficient, having already invested heavily in technology and communication systems, strengthened their security systems online and trained staff to monitor their online transactions, they are now closing branches and directing their customers online.

Crime a Moral Issue

Crime and criminals has and will always exist; slowing the paste of development by impeding foreign and even local investment, reducing productivity and causing the best people to flee the territory. Deferring crime from one community to another seems to be the preferred approach of many charged with dealing with this issue.

Vote for the Lobbyist

Politics is about winning control of a public budget, ranging from small town or municipal to regional or national, provided by the taxation and revenue collection as outlined by the governing laws or constitution. To win, the political grouping must state convincingly and for all to understand, how it plans to use these funds to improve the quality of life for all the constituencies it represents. Having won control, the task is to set priories of budgeted line items as communicated to the voters.

Financial Literacy

The present global financial crisis has been proven to have been caused by overzealous financial organizations and their sales staff to close deals. Whether selling below the prime interest rate mortgages to first time home owners, who could not clearly comprehend the inevitable jump in monthly payments and how to plan for it, or selling bundled investment instruments to other financial institutions worldwide as highly rated mortgage backed securities. These financial organizations along with the rating agencies and the financial regulators have successfully exposed that no one is there to protect the (non-financially educated) buyer.

The Will to Change

Today the world is a smaller place. Technology to access the internet has become more available in terms of cost of equipment and the price of service. Hence, making information stored online, e-mailing and chatting with other people, buying and selling online and even banking accessible to most of the people in the world. This is a model of thought that must be followed to equalize life styles and opportunities in every part of the world. The internet may have been started by the few, but quickly expanded on the basis that the more people that are online is the more information available. Billions of people now get news and research online, but more importantly, Millions of people add to the world’s knowledge base daily.

Value for Money?

Protesting higher prices by obstructing productivity will only send up prices. Understanding the circle of economics; costing & pricing, all inputs are outputs, profits finance development and people are both producers and consumers, will help generate the best solutions to get value for money.

Costing can be as simple as adding the values of all the inputs used to produce a product inclusive of direct and indirect human and time inputs. Pricing, which must be greater than the cost, can be much more complex; market driven like an auction, demand driven where it is a necessary input or supply driven where there are too many in stock.

Controlling Cost Of Living

Cost of living is an economic term that relates to particular goods and services consumed to maintain a minimum basic life style and differ worldwide. This translates to the cost of running your household. Tracking your finances alone, may be fine to budget for fixed cost items but associating the money with other relevant records, such as usage and time, may be the only way to deal with constantly raising prices.


Starting with the Basic Household expenses; Groceries (food & other household supplies), Health & Life Insurance, Education & Entertainment, Communication & Transport, Home Maintenance, Utilities. Most of which have recently changed from fixed price expenses to variable price expenses, because of volatilities in the pricing of essential inputs (all petroleum based products ) being no longer in a manageable range as to allow them to be absorbed into the consumers’ price. Hence, these bills are being calculated on a basic consumption unit with variable additional charges being passed directly to the final consumer. In such cases, the only budgetary control available to the consumer is to monitor the related consumption records.

Policy from Research not News

We are constantly bombarded by traditional and lesser established news gathering media with stories presented under the guise of expert research which turns out to be less than creditable. Whether it is in haste to break the story or to meet some arbitrary quota the technically acceptable process of collecting data, arranging it into information and questioning it into intelligence is suffering. When exactly does data become information or information become intelligence? The answer is in the definition; for if data is simply a collection of facts, information is the results of organizing those facts into understandable and acceptable formats, when information is tested and proven then and only then can it be considered intelligence.

Knowing your Investments

You have set goals, you have physically and mentally worked, you have been paid, you have saved and you must now invest. Numerous errors await, a devoted union worker is accustomed to seeing business as the enemy, hence questions where to invest. Fair Business is the only investment tool to beat inflation. As prices (Cost of Living) rise the returns on investment must also increase for you to pay your bills. Selling for a profit, or by any other name you feel comfortable with, is the system that is used to generate those returns on investment. Your pension plan, your bank savings and your (Professionally Managed) investments all grow because of business activities.

Who is targeting you and why

From birth to death and in some cases, even be on death, marketers are very interested in your buying habits. Not to influence or change practices but to better speak to and receive feedback from you. You are no longer an individual or person; you are a group with shared interests concerns or situations. To producers of goods and services, you are a targeted market.

Real Estate Opportunities

Many people ask, as soon as they realize that I (having 25 yrs of experience) track investments, for advice on their personal savings. I always answer, “That is a complicated matter that would require understanding your personal goals and abilities.” The question keeps coming and must now be answered in some detail.

Transportation Issues

In the air, there have recently been a number of bankruptcy or forced mergers in the airline industry, as increases in the price of crude oil and general rises in basic cost of living, negatively affect ticket prices. Forcing passengers to postpone or eliminate non-essential travel and requiring cargo customers to rethink their options (instead of overnight delivery of sample products).

Energy cheap & clean

Round and round and round we go, walk into any type of power generation (nuclear, solar, wind, water and steam) plant from main gate to the bathrooms and you will find numerous devices that need electricity (electrons) to carry out its function and backup electricity (off grid) systems to keep them functioning. Yes, so one needs to ask why do we depend so heavily on crude oil? The technology to replace the internal combustion engine, used in automobiles and other power producing machines, is more than fifty years old and commercially viable in mass production and are all better for the environment. Yet, in the car-parks of electricity generation plants there are no electric cars.

Food Availability

While economist have been talking about a USA and global slow down due to losses in the financial sector and the high and increasing prices of crude oil, gasoline and energy, very few had their eyes on the weather and environmental changes and the effect this would have on agricultural yields. Yes Basic Food!

Corn yields have been diverted to produce bio-fuel as a substitute for gasoline, resulting in the further loss of forested areas on this planet and of course, driving up prices of the said corn and other related crops, such as wheat and rice. Who could have seen that coming.